I'm not THAT kind of Cougar! Our school mascot was the Cougar - and I'm getting to know Myself, one Fifth Grade Journal and childhood memory at a time...

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Play That Funky Music, Peanut

Okay, I've got a name from the past for you:

Rob Van Winkle.

Do you remember that guy? Sounds familiar, right? Was he from your high school? Your first place of employment?

Nope.

That's "Vanilla Ice" to most of us out here. And recently, I've become intimately acquainted with him. Oh, come on now: NOT "intimately" intimately. Let's just say that I've heard "Ice Ice Baby" more times in the past couple of months, than I've cared to hear it in a lifetime. You see, my nine-year-old daughter is totally obsessed with him.

She spent the better part of the year crushing on Ghengis Khan - I've got a T-Shirt, a serving tray, and a whole bunch of Mongloian gear to prove it - but she's over him now. She's kicked that poor historical tyrant to the curb. At this point, it's all about Rob - Er, Vanilla. As a matter of fact, I can hear her singing into a microphone in her room, right now:

All right now stop! Collaborate and listen!Ice is back with a brand new invention.Something. Grabs a hold of me tightlyFly like a harpoon daily and nightly.Will it ever stop? I don't know!Turn off the lights - and I'll glow!To the extreme I rock the mic like a vandal:Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle...

I just wrote that from memory: Are you terrified, yet? It's just that I've heard the stinkin' song a million times since around March - and I could probably win a karaoke contest with it at this point... Just to add insult to injury, the current "Mr. Popper's Penguins" movie used the damned song for the credits. We went with some friends to see it last week, and Peanut had such an adoring look on her face (not to mention the energetic lip-sync that she was performing) that I could feel a blush steal up my neck. Good thing it was dark in that theater.

Here's how every day begins:

Peanut comes down the stairs, hair adorably tousled from sleep. She plants herself on the couch and somehow manages to liberate the remote from wherever it has been seated. Away goes the Channel 7 Morning News and up next is...

"Play That Funky Music White Boy"!

Leaving me to ponder: Why on earth was the DVR invented?

Only, so it's not the original version. It's the one with circa 1994-ish Vanilla Ice gyrating around the stage and rapping about...well, something. He is dressed in a super-'90's white outfit. His hair is so tall and stiff - think Aquanet, people! - that he could probably support my townhome community with it:Peanut thinks it is a work of art.

Did you know that he likes Key lime Pie? Well, he does.

He is on some kind of house building show now. And he's covered in tattoos -- but he's still turning out the tunes. And Peanut would probably follow him to the ends of the earth.

Good gosh, the things I read on the internet :) Seriously, Vanilla Ice? How did she even learn of him... And Abigail, Sister Christian now the time has come, don't you know that you're the lucky one, okaaayyy, todayyyy. Probably not the real lyrics but that's how it goes In My Head. Now that song will be stuck there for quite some time.